Dream a Little Dream

Dream a Little Dream - Dream 1

I dreamed of you today... the way your lips brushed mine in an unexpected moment.
I dreamed of you today... the nights you held me close as your breath caressed my neck, in that sensitive place just behind my ear.
I dreamed of you today... the way your eyes would twinkle with merriment and you would throw your head back in laugh.
I dreamed of you today... then I woke up. The pillow still smelled of you and the hint of your aftershave lingered in the air. But, I knew it was only a dream. For you are no longer here.

Dream 1

She was surrounded by people but felt so alone. Standing in the kitchen, trying to get away from everyone, she needed to breathe, she needed to sleep, she needed a drink. Oh how she wanted a drink! She had not wanted a drink this bad in more than ten years. If she was honest, it wasn’t the drink she wanted, it was the oblivion that would follow. Even if she could bring herself to pour the drink, she could never lift it to her lips, not anymore.

Hearing the voices trickle in from the other rooms, the people laughing and joking, Susan felt even more alone. Instead of doing what she should do and go back out making sure her guests were okay, she went up the kitchen stairs to her bedroom, walked in to her master closet, slipped out of her black dress and into one of Jack’s shirts. He had worn this to work this past week and even though it had been washed and pressed, it still smelled like him. Musky with a bit of spice and pipe smoke.

The shirt engulfed her, she rolled the white sleeves up a few inches to rest at her forearm. The hem hung down to her knees. Buttoning the shirt up, she walked into the bedroom, pulled down the bedspread and crawled under the covers. Pulling Jack’s pillow to her chest, she hugged it close, closed her eyes and inhaled his scent that was still embedded into the pillow.

Feeling like she had cried a river over the last three days, Susan tried not to allow the tears that were pooling in her eyes to fall. Holding them back, she felt the tightness in her throat burn and stab like a hot knife cutting into a stick of cold butter. Unable to hold them back any longer, she slowly felt the warm tears trickle down her face and soak into Jack’s pillow.

He was gone, and never coming back. For the last three days, she imagined him walking through the door laughing and joking around with her. Picking her up and spinning her around. Or kissing her until her breath was gone and her skin was on fire from his touch.

The thought of never making love to him again assaulted her and knocked the wind from her body like a physical blow. She gasped for air that would not come. He was gone. He would never hold her again. Never make their hearts beat as one.

And what did she have left to remember him by? Nothing! Yet everything around Susan reminded her of him: their bedroom, his home office, the kitchen. They had been married for ten years, and bought this house only four years ago. It was a fixer upper and Jack wanted them to do it themselves, well as much as possible. Every nail, screw and paint stroke had been put there by them, all reminders of what they had shared. Saturday’s spent making their house a home.

The room they had painted yellow, in hopes of one day converting it to a nursery, a nursery that would never hold their child, was down the hall two doors away. A dream that died with Jack when the drunk driver took not only her husband’s life, but every dream they ever had shared.

She closed her eyes and cried, sinking into depression moment by moment like a deep sea diver sinking down to the dark depths in the ocean cloaked in cold and gloom of the abyss.



He was there, in her dream. Jack walked up to her, like he did when they met during their junior year in college. He smiled at her, like she was an angel from heaven, as she leaned under the hood of her car covered in grease.

Her temperamental car had been giving her trouble, trying to save money she thought maybe she could figure it out herself. Her father had made her learn how to change her own tires and oil and she had even helped him with belts and filters. Even though she was not a mechanic, she knew her way around under the hood.

Moments later, she watched as amusement turned to shock on Jack’s silent face when she found a loose belt and replaced it herself, without asking him for help.

When she closed the hood of her car, he cupped her jaw with his hand and swept his thumb across her nose wiping the smudge of grease and oil off and smiled at her. With her hair pulled back, but loose strands swirling in the wind out of its braid, he later told her that he had never seen a more beautiful woman. She had laughed at the memory and his honest, or not so honest comment.

She had seen Jack on campus, but had never been introduced to him. He was the guy every girl wanted to be seen with, the one every girl dreamed about as their head hit the pillow. And he was standing in front of her smiling as he wiped grease off her face.

Before she knew what was happening and without saying a word, he leaned down and kissed her. Not a slow soft kiss like someone would give a person for the first time. This was a kiss you would give someone who you wanted to know on a more intimate level.

After a few minutes, he pulled away and breathlessly spoke the first words he had ever said to her, “I promised myself if I ever found a woman who knew her way around under the hood of a car, I would let her know how hot I think that is.” His lips met hers again and this time as he lowered them to hers, he said, “But, I had no idea that you would be this beautiful.”

Just like in real life, her dream was a vivid marriage of reality: the cheering crowd at the softball field across the street, the back door of her dorm slamming closed and the wind blowing her hair around her face, wrapping its tendrils around his head; and memory: the feel of his tender lips, his hands as one caressed her face and the other pulled her close with slight pressure at the small of her back and the firmness of his tongue slipping into her mouth and stroking her tongue with the most sensual passion Susan had ever felt.

Realization of what was happening met her as two guys came out of the dorm next door and cheered. Careless of her dirty greasy hands, Susan had pushed him away and ran into her dorm, climbed the three flight of stairs and leaned on her closed dorm room with a silly grin on her face.

Jack always knew how to make her smile.


She woke up with the smile still on her face. Feeling like she did three days ago when she woke up as Jack kissed her goodbye, he had not cared about her morning breath or the fact that she was still half asleep. She woke up as the kiss lingered on her lips making them tingle. Now there was no tingle, now there was no Jack. Instead of a breath of satisfaction, a gasp that ached all the way to her soul escaped her lips.